Adventure, fun and romance…enjoy the ride!

Monday Inspiration – Civil War Women

During the four years of the American Civil War, soldiers by the thousands died. But not all were killed in battle or even died of battle inflicted wounds. Disease ran rampant with the lack of sanitation and so many bodies crowded together in camps. In this time period, there also was little understanding of how germs spread disease. This was the environment that spawned the sanitary commission.

In this Victorian age, women were looked on as weak and delicate creatures, who would shudder and faint at the mere exposure to the horrors of war. But in reality, women balked at the idea of sitting home and pining for their loved ones off fighting for the cause. They needed to do something constructive and many spent hours supplying food, clean clothing and providing nursing services hoping to decrease the fatality rate from diseases that spread throughout army camps.

At the start of the war, no unified services existed to aid soldiers. Women provided relief to relatives on an individual basis. But as the war intensified ladies’ aid and soldiers’ aid societies sprang up, followed in the North, by the establishment of the U.S. Sanitary Commission, providing organized aid for the first time.

In both the North and the South about two thousand women worked as volunteers in military hospitals. A few of those women, Louisa May Alcott, Jane Stuart Woolsey and Katherine Prescott Wormeley, recorded their experiences working as nurses. But most of the women who served remained virtually anonymous with no record, other than a list of their names on hospital muster rolls to show they’d ever served.

Although not much has been written in historical records about the role women served as war volunteers, the women’s wartime contributions were significant “…these women had notable impact upon the men they tended and served under; …the introduction of female personnel into responsible roles in a traditionally male military environment was one significant step in the progress of women toward a fuller involvement in American society.”

Prior to the Civil War, the ideals of American women were shaped by a call of “the Cult of True Womanhood”. Men’s work moved away from a rural enterprises into shops, offices and factories. So, women inherited the running of the household, a sheltered place where they created warmth and cleanliness for their husbands and children in order to nurture them.

But the Civil War changed all that. With the men engaged in warfare far from home, as in World War II, women turned their attention to work outside the home. In both the North and South, women joined volunteer brigades to work as nurses. For the first time in American history, “women played a significant role in a war effort. By the end of the war, these experiences had expanded many Americans’ definition of ‘true womanhood’.” http://www.history.com/topics/women-in-the-civil-war

I learned quite a bit about the woman’s role in the Civil War working at Old World Wisconsin. We had an encampment there every year. Did you know that teachers before the war were mostly men? After the war that turned almost 180 degrees and it became a job for women.

I hadn’t realized that, Ilona. Also, nursing became an almost exclusive female profession for many years, because of the pressing need for nurses during the war. Prior to that, women didn’t work outside the home as nurses. So many opportunities opened up for women because of that conflict.

Nice post, Susan. I find it fascinating that around the same time, English women including Florence Nightingale and Mary Seacole were going out to the Crimea to nurse soldiers fighting there. It was the beginning of women in England taking on new roles, just as in the U.S. Some interesting parallels.

Thanks, Frances! I think it’s true that England and America were running parallel at this time. Americans were actually fascinated with English culture and a lot of what happened in England greatly influenced customs in America.

Follow Blog via Email

Victorian Romance

About the Author

Susan Macatee writes American Civil War romance, some with a paranormal twist. From time travels to vampire tales, her stories are always full of love and adventure.

She’s spent many years as a Civil War civilian reenactor with the 28th Pennsylvania Volunteer Regiment. She's a wife, mother of three grown sons, and has recently become a grandmother. She spends her free time inhaling books, watching baseball games and favorite old movies.